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Disclosure doesn’t fix it: Lessons from CBS/CNET

Conflicts of interest are subtle things.

One of the most worrisome developments in the media landscape over the last two decades has been conglomeration—which coincides quite naturally with additional concerns about profit-driven bias in publishing, both online and off. At the heart of these concerns sits a simple concept: conflict of interest. When a writer, editor, publisher, or C-level executive moves to protect one "interest" to the detriment of another, you have a conflict. The classical example is the hypothetical reporter covering Acme Inc. while also holding stock in Acme Inc. Can that reporter be trusted to not let her financial interest in the company affect her reporting?

The concern permeates every publishing entity, and last week CBS/CNET provided a textbook example of such a conflict. CNET's parent company CBS told CNET not to hand a "best of CES" award to DISH's new Hopper product because DISH and CBS are currently locked in litigation. (Rather than rehash the imbroglio, I'll point you to our earlier coverage and provide a screengrab below. CNET has now issued its own statement about what happened, and one of its reporters has already resigned over the company's handling of the matter.) The story quickly showed exactly why such conflicts can be so damaging—they generate considerable distrust.

The notice at the bottom of CNET's Hopper review states the product "was removed from consideration for the Best of CES 2013 awards due to active litigation involving our parent company CBS Corp. We will no longer be reviewing products manufactured by companies with which we are in litigation with respect to such product." This disclosure, just like a disclosure from a reporter who owns stock in a company that he covers, gives the appearance of being forthright. It seems to explain an editorial stance or possibly a bias to the reader. But what it does not do is actually remove the conflict of interest.

Conflicts of interest are persistent, and they do not only appear when journalists write about a particular company with which they might have a conflict. No, a real conflict of interest will affect story selection, reviews of other products, or the ratings of other products vis-à-vis one another, among other things. In publishing, what you do not do is just as critical as what you do. What stories you pass over, which paragraph you edit out, which events you cover, and which you skip can all be affected by a conflict of interest, and these things don’t come with an opportunity for disclosure. In the case of CNET, the implication of this disclosure is that not only will the site not look at DISH products, but it also will not take those products into consideration when reviewing other DVRs. It effectively colors all DVR coverage at CNET.

These kinds of effects are the main reason I don't believe disclosures do much to resolve conflicts of interest. One might feel that saying, "I'm an investor in Acme Inc." or “I’m in a skirmish with Acme Legal” erases a conflict of interest by bringing light to the issue. Or perhaps one thinks that it’s merely a fair heads-up of potential bias in a kind of “take it or leave it” way. But in reality, these disclosures only help raise awareness of a conflict part of the time.

At Ars Technica, we are fortunate to have a parent company (Conde Nast) that exercises zero influence over our editorial decisions. We have a strong separation between Church and State (Sales and Editorial), and we are also fortunate to have a team that is willing to forgo investing directly in the tech stocks and startup companies they cover. I believe this is the way we can best serve our own readership, but I won’t say it’s the only way to serve a readership. I understand and respect that there are other models emerging, and none of them are sinister. Still, "disclosure" remains overrated as remedy for these complex ills.

None of this is to say disclosure is a bad thing; I simply don't see it as a panacea. Disclosing conflicts is like pointing to the tip of an iceberg. You at least know the iceberg is there, but you have no idea how far and wide and deep it extends beyond what you can see. And unlike raw bias, which tends to be ideological, conflicts of interest are more worrisome because they can lead to real impropriety. This CBS/CNET situation is a perfect example of terrible, unrepentant disservice to a publication's readership.

Ken Fisher
Ken is the founder & Editor-in-Chief of Ars Technica. A veteran of the IT industry and a scholar of antiquity, Ken studies the emergence of intellectual property regimes and their effects on culture and innovation. Emailken@arstechnica.com//Twitter@kenfisher

74 Reader Comments

"Conflict of Interest" disclosure and then still following through on the conflict is about as valid as the "This video is copyright someone else. I'm not making money on this" notices on YouTube, where the poster thinks that alleviates them of copyright infringement.

When you write this line "At Ars Technica, we are fortunate to have a parent company that exercises zero influence over our editorial decisions.", we have no way of knowing if CNet wasn't the exact same way until this past week. We don't know if CBS had interfered before, or if this was the first time because of their animosity or legal issues regarding their lawsuit with Dish. While I'd like to assume that it has never happened before, saying that you are free of this just because the parent company hasn't exerted the influence yet is a bit wrong I think.

What I'm curious about is how people think CNet should have responded. Canceling the awards? Resigning from CNet? Making a different note in the awards that the Dish would have won, but they won't award it one? Do any of these solutions make the issue better, or do they just make people feel better about it, because they can claim they would have quit on the spot? Does quitting stop CBS from doing it again, or does it just lead to people that are willing to compromise more easily taking the job, knowing what happened before? I see a lot of people saying what they would do, but no one saying how that fixes the issue.

While I'd like to assume that it has never happened before, saying that you are free of this just because the parent company hasn't exerted the influence yet is a bit wrong I think.

No, I can say it because it's a cardinal rule at CN that those lines are not crossed. It was one of the major reasons why I was comfortable selling the site to them. Now, obviously legal will step in if we break actual laws, but we haven't done that yet, and it's clear CNet was not breaking any laws in their situation.

Ars can hardly claim that there is a strong separation between editorial and sales when it posts glowing reviews of products in "The Dealmaster" posts.

That program is entirely run by editorial, sales has nothing to do with it. Lee and his team choose what to include and what to exclude, like the deals on pretty much every tech site on each that does them.

While I'd like to assume that it has never happened before, saying that you are free of this just because the parent company hasn't exerted the influence yet is a bit wrong I think.

No, I can say it because it's a cardinal rule at CN that those lines are not crossed. It was one of the major reasons why I was comfortable selling the site to them. Now, obviously legal will step in if we break actual laws, but we haven't done that yet, and it's clear CNet was not breaking any laws in their situation.

So are they legally prohibited from interference? If there isn't, I'm saying what if CNet last week had said " it's a cardinal rule at CBS that those lines are not crossed", and at the time it was, but then in this situation, that was crossed? If it's not a legally binding agreement to have zero interference, couldn't it then be the same as what happened at CNet? If it is legally binding, why don't you put that into the article text to clear it up.

What I'm curious about is how people think CNet should have responded.

If the issue is that CNet doesn't have editorial independence, then the proper response would be one that asserts that they do indeed have editorial independence. So as I see it, they should've just gone ahead and issued the awards to Dish.

Since Dish would surely pounce on that in the litigation, probably they would also have to include a statement emphasizing "the award decisions were made among the editorial staff, and should not be construed as an endorsement of Dish by CBS, Inc., which is party to ongoing litigation against Dish over certain features of the Hopper." They might also rename the awards to further disassociate from CBS, Inc.

They actually could still do this.

Obviously, behaving as if the CEO of CBS isn't their boss may put the jobs of the entire CNet reviews staff on the line. It could also expose them to civil liability, however far-fetched, when CBS or its shareholders claim that the litigation against Dish was undermined by their actions, costing the company money. Thus, everyone would have to be on board.

And if everyone is on board, they should try to resolve the matter with the CEO directly—the Editor-in-Chief could schedule an urgent, one-on-one meeting with the CEO, then show up to the meeting with the entire editorial staff and everyone else at CNet who supports them, if not also supporters from CBS News, making it clear that if they don't get clarity on editorial independence, the entire staff will put their jobs on the line and shut down CNet, embarrassing CBS far worse than the soon-to-be-forgotten "awards" ever could. My guess is in that situation, CBS would do what it can to avoid the negative publicity, but only if it's a large group of staff sticking their necks out, not just a couple of people who have nothing to lose.

So are they legally prohibited from interference? If there isn't, I'm saying what if CNet last week had said " it's a cardinal rule at CBS that those lines are not crossed", and at the time it was, but then in this situation, that was crossed?

I'm the Editor of this site and can run it as I see fit, until I do something actionable under my contract. I am not obligated to do anything but follow the laws and policies of the company. And those policies do not include bending editorial to anyone's whims.

I have no idea what the policies are at CNet, so I can't comment. But I can say that there was no legal reason to do this that I can see, and they've not appealed to that, so it seems unlikely.

Once any company posts a disclosure like that, they let their legal department control how they run their company.

At that point, they've lost the ability to do anything with a focus on the customer.

I would remind folks that the audience is sort of the customer (we don't pay directly)--except for et subscriptors, the paying customers are the folks spending advertising dollars! They support the site directly, even Ars! Good editorial folks are supposed to resist this temptation, but what if faced with financial extinction...? Even for some places like traditional newspapers, even with subscriptors paying something, there may be too much advertising subsidy to completely ignore. Or, look at a site like Edmunds.com--who are their true customers? Auto dealers paying for referrals? Free-loading browser drivers? How much money does the local auto industry spend with your local newspaper every month? Probably more than you thought. Same with CBS or CNET. Really hard to resist that pressure. Is it OK to acknowledge that it becomes a choice between remaining open and extinction?

But, I think this was slightly different from that--I think maybe this was related to the fact that lawsuits were pending--but would Dan Rather (god rest his career) or his descendants in CBS news been OK with such an edict? Does CNET lack status within CBS as true journalism? If so, is it because they're already doing a lot of potentially "purchased" review work (I don't know--I regularly read them but keep in mind they probably get free stuff to review based on prior reviews).

I would expect and hope that a seasoned editorial team with good independence from corporate overlords would be insulated from outside pressures, but I think the financial temptation is there sometimes, and it is very powerful.

These financial pressures can be real, and it takes a well-financed, independently financed journal to poo poo them entirely. So in situations like this, selling a site or paper to someone *does* matter--if you sell to someone who cares only for $$$, then you'll see that as the final result. It's rare that someone is willing to burn down the publication to make a temporary point (owners can always re-open with entirely new personnel in a bit).

Thanks for the article, Ken. It's nice to see these things hashed out. We can't prevent bias, or shenanigans, but we can try to be informed readers.

I had always presumed that Lee would have to own some bitcoins to use the systems he was commenting on.

If his holding is more significant than, say, a few thousand dollars then I think that would have merited a more significant disclosure.That said his reporting on it never seemed to shy away from the (significant) negatives associated with them.

The only significant misstep with the CN overlords was, unsurprisingly, legal with the terms of use relating to the forum. That got (IMO) comprehensively fixed but does show that you can't say your totally independent from the overlords, no matter how stand off. Ken called this out directly in the article and comments so I'm pleased that the stance is one of "this is our situation and where we stand" rather than platitudes.

"Conflict of Interest" disclosure and then still following through on the conflict is about as valid as the "This video is copyright someone else. I'm not making money on this" notices on YouTube, where the poster thinks that alleviates them of copyright infringement.

The difference is, conglomerate media is making money through coi and infringement. All the while threatening your livelyhood should you not agree.

Does this mean that CNET and/or CBS will also stop reviewing products manufactured by Google? Remember that Viacom's suit against YouTube was reinstated last August. According to Wikipedia, CBS was technically spun off from Viacom as a separate company, but both companies are still controlled by Summer Redstone's National Amusements, Inc.

It seems to me if CNET & CBS are really serious about this conflict of interest fig leaf they should also stop reviewing all Google and Android products while that litigation with their parent company remains active.

I applaud the clear statement of intent and design for Ars to avoid CoI altogether.

However, I must now ask: why does Mr. Lee cover Bitcoin stories when he owns some? That seems to be a glaring counter-example to the principles outlined in this article.

That's a good example, but IIRC it's not much. I suppose it would be similar to Kyle reviewing game consoles that he owns.

When Kyle was going through the Wii-transfer nonsense, I remember that he mentioned not accepting a free repair from Nintendo in order to prevent a possible conflict. I appreciated that.

Except Bitcoins are currency, so perception of their value, as hinted at by an article discussing them, affects their value. The same can't be said for reviewing some good one owns.

If you own something, and you've bought andpaid for that thing, then you can easily have a vested interest in wanting that thing to succeed (especially if the product has an ecosystem), or wanting to see it in a more positive light so you don't feel like you've wasted your money. This is the reason for most fanboy flame wars on the Internet.

On the other hand, I value reviews in which the reviewer has bought something and has used it over an extended period of time, because they will have a more complete view and better knowledge of it than someone who has just used it for a day or two.

I commend Ars for its strict policy of separation between editorial and advertising, but I think every working journalist today has been stripped of any illusions that his or her newsroom is a fortress of journalistic purity within the for-profit enterprise that pays all the bills.

I'm not saying business decisions to boost profitability or generate extra revenue are tantamount to an organizational bias or a breach of journalistic ethics, but they can generate conflicts of interest. For instance, the increase in outsourcing and strategic partnerships with other businesses produces corporate interdependencies that could discourage a news organization from maintaining the same level of editorial independence.

If a media company makes a significant portion of its revenue through partnerships with Apple, Google or Amazon, it is bound to affect the way those companies are treated in news coverage. That's especially true when the business side is struggling to maintain profit levels, because it ratchets up the pressure to let business concerns intrude on editorial independence.

It was different a couple of decades ago when newspapers and magazines were cash cows. Back then, those running the business were happy to let those in editorial make decisions with little concern for their impact on the bottom line. I've noticed a change in that attitude lately, and while it may be subtle, it's enough to make me worry about the direction things are headed.

The obvious solution would be to make all news organizations not-for-profit. But as old as that idea is, no one seems to have a clue how to implement it. I guess we'll have to trust that most reporters and editors will continue to fend off encroachment from the business side of the business.